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Sunday, February 09, 2014

Sexuality, class and control (Sue Caldwell)

Sexuality, class and control

As part of LGBT History Month, Sue Caldwell
looks at how ideas of what is an acceptable expression of desire have
changed as class society developed

Two men caress in a picture from a Greek tomb painted in about 470BC

The first same sex marriages will take place in England and Wales next month, with Scotland expected to follow shortly.

This might seem to herald a new era of equality for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) people.
But some 44 percent of young LGBT people have considered suicide,
according to a report from the charity Metro. Almost all school children
report that they hear the word “gay” used in a derogatory way.

Last year saw the suicide of transgender teacher Lucy Meadows following a vitriolic campaign against her in the Daily Mail.

LGBT oppression remains a feature of the society we live in, but resistance to that oppression can also have an impact.

Throughout history the way that sexuality has been viewed has been
shaped both by the way that society is organised and the way that people
have fought for their right to love and have sex with who they choose.

Before the late 19th century no one in Britain was defined as a
“homosexual” person. Certain sexual acts may have been outlawed, but the
labelling of people as gay, straight or bisexual and discrimination
based on those divisions is a fairly recent development.

As human society has developed the way sexual desire is understood
and expressed has changed. Since class divisions emerged in society tens
of thousands of years ago rulers have wanted to control people’s
desire.

The main institution that has shaped the way that sexuality is
controlled is the family. The family is the way class societies have
organised the rearing of the next generation.

In many societies this has not meant a unit of a mother, father and their children as is the current common sense.

For instance in ancient Rome a citizen’s family would include both
blood relatives and slaves. How a family is organised has always been
dependant on a person’s class.

In Europe major changes in attitude and social structure emerged
following the collapse of the Roman Empire, and later with the
development of capitalism.

These two major changes in the function of the family have in turn altered which sexual practices were considered acceptable.

In Ancient Greece and Rome sex between men, often including young
boys, was accepted as normal, though what was acceptable changed over
time.

Slavery was crucial to production in Greek society, and the existence
of a ready supply of slaves meant that reproduction within the family
was not given a high status.

There was a separation of sexuality from procreation that allowed the
acceptance of sex between men—and between women, although this is less
well documented.Oppressive

At the same time the political disparity between citizens and
non-citizens meant that these relationships were often oppressive.

In Rome the use of male and female slaves as sex objects was common.
What was frowned on was to be the passive partner in sex between two
men.

Artemidorus, a slave owner in the second century, explained that “to
let oneself be buggered by one’s own slave...is an assault on one’s
person and leads to one being despised by one’s slave”.

With the collapse of the Roman Empire and the drying up of the supply of slaves, a new system of exploitation emerged.

This was feudalism based on serfdom, with peasants working on the
land and forced to pay their landlord with labour and taxes. The family
unit now became an important centre of production.

Christianity was entrenching itself as the state religion and it
adapted to justify a new system of oppression and exploitation.

But even earlier Christian writers like Clement of Alexandria
declared in 198AD, “To have sex for any other purpose than to produce
children is to violate nature”.

People were obliged to marry and have children, and any sexual act that did not involve procreation was outlawed.

This blanket condemnation was aimed not just at same sex relations,
but against everything from sex with animals and incest to anal and oral
sex, contraception and abortion.

Laws against “unnatural” acts persisted for many centuries in various
forms, but they were directed at particular acts, not against a
particular type of person. At times they were strictly enforced,
especially when the ruling class felt under threat.

At other times, the atmosphere was more relaxed. There is evidence of
same sex relations between monks and between nuns, and of a “gay
subculture” in many European cities by the 12th century.

By this time feudal society was starting to break down and the church
was struggling to maintain its control over sexual behaviour.

The rising capitalist class was ushering in notions of individual
liberty. In the revolts that brought it to power from the English
Revolution onwards it often promoted ideas of individual liberty and
personal and sexual freedom.

Molly houses in London became established as places where men could
drink and dance together in the 18th century—although they were subject
to raids with resulting trials and executions.

One young labourer caught up in such a raid, William Brown, is
recorded as saying “I think there is no crime in making what use I
please of my own body”.

These political challenges heralded the second major change in the
way that production was organised—the emergence of industrial
capitalism—and with it a new role for the family.

Production became centred in large factories and mines as people were pulled off the land and into emerging cities.Collapsing

Women and children laboured alongside men in unsanitary conditions.
Life expectancy was short and the existing family was collapsing.

Some in the ruling class began to fear that the workforce might not
be able to reproduce itself in these circumstances. There was also
social unrest and agitation around the condition of the new working
class. The ruling class moved to assert its authority and imposed a new
pattern of family life on the working class.
This involved a separation of work from the home, and was modelled on
the ruling class family where women stayed at home and men were the
breadwinners.

Along with this new type of “nuclear” family there grew up the gender
stereotypes with which we are familiar to this day. The new institution
required a raft of legislation to enforce it and was not always
submitted to willingly.

It is from this time that the category of a particular type of person
known as a “homosexual” emerges, representing a threat to the nuclear
family.

Britain’s 1885 Criminal Law Amendment Act outlawed acts of “gross
indecency” between men, and although this was a vague description it was
used widely against the new category of homosexual men, most famously
in the trial of Oscar Wilde in 1895.

The socialist Edward Carpenter in Britain and Magnus Hirschfeld in
Germany were among those who campaigned for legal reform in the early
20th century.

But once the revolutionary wave following the Russian Revolution of 1917 receded the struggle went underground.

It did not emerge again until the 1960s when a more radical movement
emerged in the US alongside movements for Black Power and against the
Vietnam War.

The trigger for this was a police raid on the Stonewall bar in New
York. Gays, lesbians and transgender people fought with the police, and
the ensuing riots gave birth to the modern gay liberation movement.

Some campaigners see their LGBT identity as a focus for organisation,
either separately or acknowledging that their oppression “intersects”
with others such as race, gender or class.

Marxists see class as the fundamental division in society, not
because it is the centre of people’s experience, but because class
society is the root of oppression.

The ruling class uses the family to exert control over many aspects
of our lives including our sexuality. Where the rich and powerful seek
to divide and weaken our class, we should seek to unite it and oppose
all forms of oppression together.

It is the class structure of society that is key to maintaining that
oppression and the fight against class society that shows the way to end
it.

Our sexuality has been shaped by the way the ruling class has organised production to protect their wealth and privilege.

A truly free sexuality will only emerge when working class people
take hold of society for themselves and reject the divisions that have
been imposed upon us.

Further reading:

The Red in the Rainbow: sexuality, socialism and LGBT liberation by Hannah Dee (£7)

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